Week 3 I Tweak 3: Renew + Release
The ask is big this week — but so is the payoff.
Tweak Three is all about taking inventory: what lifts you up, and what drags you down. What stays, what goes. What strengthens your sense of self, supports your spirit, and makes your day‑to‑day feel lighter — and what leaves you overwhelmed, drained, or squeezed into a kind of mental and emotional claustrophobia.
This is the week to clear space for what actually fuels you.
I have a confession to make: I currently have 295 unread text messages and… umm… err… ehhh… 119,938 emails sitting in my Gmail inbox. YES, I KNOW. But this is a judgment‑free zone, so please hold your commentary until the end.
It gets better. I’m subscribed to newsletters I’ve never opened. I have 1,200 Facebook friends in a world where I have maybe 12 actual friends. I own too many paintbrushes, too many notebooks, a suspicious number of unmatched socks, pens that don’t work, and keys that open absolutely nothing.
You see the pattern, right? Shit has to change here.
Phase 1 is pure purge mode — clearing out the digital clutter, the physical junk, the emotional noise, all of it.
Phase 2 is the refill: bringing back only what’s healthy, grounding, and genuinely supportive. Self‑care. Wisdom. Clean spaces. A clearer head. The things that make you feel like you again.
This feels like spring cleaning… or winter cleaning… or maybe “my life needs a reset” cleaning. What actually fills me up? What does intentional self‑care look like? Where do I even begin? And how do I get my kids on board without bribing them with snacks?
I’m excited to start this process — genuinely. But I’m also very aware that I go back to work tomorrow after two weeks off, and the kind of to‑do list I want to create would require a leave of absence and possibly a support group. So I’m grounding myself in the purpose of this 12‑week reset: small, bite‑sized tweaks. Not a full‑scale life renovation.
Here’s the plan:
- Do not delete my entire email address and start a new life (tempting, but no).
- Find an app to help clean out my inbox — a reasonable solution with a mild learning curve.
- Block 30 minutes to clear out my text messages.
- Block 30 minutes to gently curate my Facebook friends list (unfriend? defriend? lovingly release?).
- Unsubscribe from 3 emails a day — slow and steady digital freedom.
- Tackle…the art closet. Cue dramatic music: dun dun dunnnnn.
- Let go of the skinny jeans I will never wear again. (Practices positive self‑talk: It’s not that the jeans don’t look 10/10 on you — it’s that you and the jeans have simply outgrown each other.)
The intentional self‑care part deserves its own post — for a few reasons. First, I’m writing this from a café, and I’m currently sitting across from a teeny tiny baby who is making me question my firm “closed for business” stance on having another child. Second, I’m out of time. My two‑hour window of child‑free productivity is officially winding down, and with it, today’s precious slice of “me time.”
But seriously… this baby. The tiny feet. The tiny noises. Someone intervene immediately.
More on self‑care tomorrow.
